An appeal to colleagues in the media: Please eliminate the term "implicit recognition of Israel"

David Bedein, Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency suggests an appeal to colleagues in the media: Please eliminate the term "implicit recognition of Israel". Here's why:

"Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian terrorist organizations have formed a common front to make war on the state of Israel, while orchestrating a sophisticated PR campaign throughout the world and especially in Israel to convey the specious notion that Hamas and Fateh have formed a "national unity government" that "implicitly" recognizes Israel."

The joint Hamas-Fatah effort is based on what has been dubbed "the prisoners' document" that has been organized by Palestinians in all the factions who are serving life sentences for multiple murders.

Marwan Barghouti, the sec'y of the Fateh most associated with facilitating the prisoner's document, is serving imprisonment for life for murdering 13 people.

While news agencies around the world have indeed hailed the prisoner's document as if it "implicitly" recognizes the State of Israel, media research professionals worth their salt could READ the document and discern that it makes no mention of Israel, except as an enemy.

Indeed, the prisoners document is readily available in English from official Palestinian Authority sources at: www [dot] jmcc [dot] org/documents/prisoners.htm

It stipulates in its principal clause that, "the Palestinian people has the right to establish a Palestinian state on the lands that were occupied in 1967-a state whose capital is Jerusalem-while ensuring the right of return to refugees [to the rest of Palestine] and the release of all prisoners. Hamas and Islamic Jihad must join the PLO, which is the legal and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people has the right to fight by all means, focusing the battle for the lands that were occupied since 1967, along with political activity and continued negotiations. The PLO and the president of the Palestinian Authority will be in charge of the negotiations. Any agreement that is reached will be submitted for ratification either to the Palestinian National Council or by means of a referendum."

An aide in Prime Minister Olmert's office, speaking at a briefing for the media after the weekly cabinet meeting on September 10th. 2006, said that if a Palestinian national unity government was formed on the basis of the prisoners' document that would be a catastrophic development, since no breakthrough in the current impasse with the Palestinians would then be possible. The prisoners' document does not meet the threshold conditions that were set by the international community, said Olmert's aide.